After emancipation, Black schoolteacher & future Alabama state legislator William V. Turner reported to the Freedmen's Bureau that local officials were illegally withholding food assistance from Black mothers, telling them it "is not for negroes, but for the poor white women."
Alabama Black Teacher to the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of Education, February 5, 1867; and Headquarters of the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner to the Government Relief ...
The Black woman, Turner wrote, "has a large family of little ones, & she is their sole support." "I know her to be an industrious hard striving woman," he attested, but "she cannot get any aid, from the subsistence agent here, because she is not white" & bc her husband had fought for the Union.
Alabama Black Teacher to the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of Education, February 5, 1867; and Headquarters of the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner to the Government Relief ...
After testifying abt the denial of food assistance to Black mothers, Turner concluded that "It certainly must be a great crime to be a Negro, I cannot view it in any other light."
Alabama Black Teacher to the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of Education, February 5, 1867; and Headquarters of the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner to the Government Relief ...
After fighting to destroy slavery, Turner explained, "We the colored people have done all we could to aid the government, in her hour of need, & now our services are no longer needed, our women may suffer hunger—when it is in the hands of the agents relieve their wants—simply bc [they] are black."
Alabama Black Teacher to the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of Education, February 5, 1867; and Headquarters of the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner to the Government Relief ...
